Last week I hit 50,000 followers so I thought I would reflect on one of the philosophical issues I’m dealing with. Maybe it will help and support you in your journey too.

I hit this milestone exactly one year after I hit 30,000 followers. If you do the math, that’s 400 new followers every single week. And actually, it has been a lot more than that because I still cull all the spammers out of my stream (with the help of my wife). So, to the best of my knowledge, all 50,000 of those folks in my Twitter audience are real people.

I’ve gone back and forth about whether it is worth the effort to evaluate every Twitter follower. In the long run, who cares if I let spammers in the door? So far, I have taken some pride and comfort in knowing that there is nothing fake about my Twitter audience. It is real, it is organic, and it is a very engaging and supportive group. So if I follow you, it means something. I am not “automated.”

But is worth it the time I put into it?

Why spammers help your business

This may sound counter-intuitive, but taking the time to cull spammers might actually be hurting my business and online reputation.

If I were not blocking spam Twitter accounts, I estimate I would be approaching 100,000 followers by now. I’m convinced that the social proof of numbers like “likes,” “followers,” and yes, even a Klout score matter in our online world. Few, if any, people are going to take the time to examine my career and accomplishments before deciding to follow me, read my blog, or even buy my books. But they may look at 100,000 Twitter followers and decide that I am an authority. It is just the way of the world.

I was recently introduced at a speech like this: “I’d like to introduce our keynote speaker Mark Schaefer. He is the author of Return On Influence, has more than 40,000 Twitter followers, and a Klout score of 72. Please welcome him.” So, this idea of social proof even lends validation in the offline world!

Being honest. A fool’s errand?

So, in review, I am probably wasting resources by cleansing my Twitter account. Nobody really knows or cares about it, I’m probably the only blogger doing it, and it might even be hurting my business in some way.

But I’ve decided to keep doing it.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter what other people think or know. It matters what I think and know. I’ve come this far without “doping” my Twitter stream with fake accounts to inflate the numbers. I just can’t quit now. If somebody asks me how many Twitter followers I have, I don’t want a voice in the back of my head saying, “yeah, but most of them are not even real.”

1) My Twitter Tribe matters. If I follow you, I choose to do so. No auto-follows, ever. Before I follow, I have read your bio, some of your tweets and probably clicked your link. I have a quality audience and it’s staying that way.

2) I want an audience to be proud of. This probably sounds old-fashioned but I don’t want to do anything in my life that I wouldn’t be proud to disclose to my children. And if they examined my Twitter audience, I would not want them to see a bunch of nymphs peddling their videos. Anybody can see who you’re following. What does your audience say about you?

3) I want to protect you. If I block the spamaholics I keep them from my tweets and I keep them, in a small way, from you. I see so many of these folks who copy “Follow Friday” lists trying to lure followers. No. Stay away from my friends dammit.

4) Because I just do not want to play that game. I’m not going to be passive and imply that what they’re doing is OK.

Blocking sends a message. If we ALL blocked them, they would have to go away, right?

What do you think? Would you spend the time to go through 400 new Twitter followers every week?

But having said that, I recognize there is enormous pressure to do just that. It’s a reality of busy life isn’t it? We just want somebody to “do it for us.”

Let’s look at the risk of this strategy that I recounted in The Tao of Twitter: I have a friend who had been building a Twitter relationship with a business executive she admired. They had tweeted back and forth a few times and he had provided some helpful career advice to her. When they had a chance to finally meet at a networking event, she introduced herself and was met with a puzzled stare. He had never heard of her before, and sheepishly explained that his PR agency was tweeting for him. Obviously his reputation was ruined for this young woman … and also to all those she talked to about the incident!

In a well-publicized snafu, a PR agency rep tweeting on behalf of Chrysler Corporation sent out this tweet: “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity when no one here knows how to f**cking drive.”

He thought he was tweeting from his personal account but in fact, it came from Chrysler’s Twitter account by mistake. He lost his job and the agency lost the account.

Faking it on Twitter is dangerous business.

But you may be in a situation where you have no other practical choice than to “team-tweet” behind a brand name, then you could outsource or share the tweeting between a few trusted individuals. If you do outsource:

Be clear and realistic on your objectives.

Have clear lines of who owns what.

Have a clear plan for content, tone and frequency.

Be prepared to take advice and listen to it. Most experts know what they are doing and it’s in their best interests to make it work for you.

Make sure that you have a disaster recovery plan in case of a PR upset. If you’re using an agency, ask them to show you how they are managing your account distinctly from personal/other client accounts, so that tweets aren’t mistakenly sent via the wrong account – easy to do when you’re using a sharing platform. Ask to meet everyone that will be tweeting via your account and create some rules or guidelines for tweeting. Outsourcing doesn’t mean abdicating responsibility – make sure you are involved and holding everyone to account.

Before you outsource, carefully weigh the risks and benefits. One of the biggest opportunities of social media is “humanizing” the brand and even the biggest brands are finding ways to do that successfully. In the long-term, businesses should aim at involving their own employees to be “brand beacons” on Twitter instead of relying on an outside agency.

Agree?

Illustration: I doctored up an original illustration from BigStock.com

This may seem odd to you, but Oliver, a successful blogger and Michael Arrington’s first employee at Tech Crunch, had never heard of these people when I mentioned their names. The only reason I learned who he was is because he’s the product evangelist for Pearltrees, a tool for organizing information that I really love. My interaction with Oliver was eye-opening because I just assumed that if you’re in “the biz” you would have heard of most of these folks.

It made me realize just how narrow our view of the web is.

A few weeks ago Mark Schaefer wrote about his observation that there is nothing new in blogging. I’m willing to bet if most of Mark’s readers put the names of the blogs they read on a regular basis into a hat, they would all have a very similar list. Our natural tendency is to gravitate towards people similar to us, and the result is a self-imposed lens through which we view the social web. Maybe it isn’t that there’s nothing new in blogging, but that we’ve been stuck in an incestuous circle of social media marketers, lifestyle designers, and personals development bloggers. Just so we’re clear, I’m not pointing fingers. I fall into those same incestuous circles!

Innovation and new ideas can’t diffuse throughout the social web when experts spend all their time talking to experts. That’s why I believe it’s important we not only embrace new and emerging talent, but also take steps to get outside of our comfort zone and expand our horizons. Here are five ideas on how to do that …

1. Purge your blog reader and start from scratch

Every few months I literally unsubscribe from nearly every blog I read. This enables me to accomplish a few things. First I’m able to prioritize which blogs have become the most important to me. Second, it forces me to look for new blogs and creates an opportunity to connect with new people. As a result my network continually expands. Subscribe to a few blogs that have nothing to do with your industry but that you just find interesting.

2. Pick 5 new people to follow on Twitter and build a relationship with them

I’ve never particularly cared too much about the number of followers I have on Twitter which might seem sacrilegious, but it’s been a big part of my philosophy on building relationships. What I’m more interested in is who is actually following me. Every few days I read the bios of my new followers and pick a few to engage with. The amazing people I’ve found by doing this include successful entrepreneurs, artists, published authors, literary agents, and many other people who are doing amazing things online. This has been a great way to broaden my own horizons and connect with exciting new people.

3. Attend a conference outside your industry

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received about leveraging public speaking was from Michael Port. He said that rather than speaking at a social media conference go speak to an association of dentists because in that environment you’ll be the go-to person on your subject matter. This could lead to additional speaking engagements and consulting opportunities. By attending or speaking conferences outside your industry, you not only have an opportunity to grow your network substantially, but you could also tap into a significant source of opportunities. Additionally you may find that you’ll be exposed to a wide variety of new ideas.

4. Go to smaller conferences

Our general tendency is to attend the biggest industry conferences each year so we can see as many people as possible. This creates a highly competitive environment for people’s attention and limits what we can get out of the conference. I think conferences like Social Slam, which is devoted to opening up speaking and networking opportunities for diverse new talent, drives opportunities to meet thought leaders outside the echo chamber. One additional suggestion I have for conferences – don’t hang out with the people you already know. Seems obvious, but not always easy to do.

5. Don’t go to conferences. Attend a retreat instead

A 5-minute conversation and business card exchange during happy hour at a conference has its limits in terms of building long-term relationships. This is why I think a 5-6 person retreat of some sort that involves more than just talking about business could be much more powerful than a typical conference. Imagine how well you’d get to know each other if a small group of people spent three or four days together.

If we’re going to discover what’s new in blogging and social media marketing, then we have to keep opening up ourselves to new people and new experiences by trying things we’ve never tried.

Please leave your ideas in the comment section about how you are energizing your network and feel free to leave the names of a few non-social media experts you enjoy learning from!

I’ve been very active on Twitter for about four years now and I would say the aspect that has changed the most in that time is the explosive popularity of Twitter Chats. Twitter Chats have become an important networking and sales tool. In fact, you can even make money off of Twitter chats. So let’s take a deep dive into this important social media trend.

The idea behind a Twitter Chat is very simple. A group of people with a common interest gather together at a designated time to share ideas and discussion. The chat is united by a “hashtag” so that all can follow along. For example, #CMChat gathers people who are in the country music business and #CookingChat brings together cooking enthusiasts. There are chats for every imaginable interest and the list is growing all the time.

There are several powerful benefits of chats:

Chats are a great place to learn and exchange ideas with like-minded individuals from around the world.

It is an excellent place to meet interesting new contacts. When you find a chat that you like, it would be a good idea to follow these individuals and perhaps even create a list of the chat members.

Chats are a great place to gain awareness for your own brand and ideas.

Participating in chats creates connections and content that can enhance your personal influence.

A company, brand, or individual can establish a voice of authority by creating and leading a chat.

Chats have become so popular, some companies are paying advertising fees to sponsor them. Yes, you can make money from a Twitter chat!

So how do you get started?

The first thing to do is find a relevant chat. The best way to keep up with this dynamic list is to google “Twitter chat schedule” and you will find a detailed list of chats by subject, day, and time. It will also list the leaders of the chat and provide a link to the most recent session.

Once you pick your chats, there are a couple ways to participate. First, follow the people who run these chats and get their updates on upcoming chats. When the chat is scheduled to happen, you can search for the designated hashtag in Twitter. The best way to follow along is to use a free service like TweetChat or TwitterFall, platforms specifically designed to enhance your Twitter chat experience.

A word of warning: On the most popular chats, the tweets may be coming at a furious rate! It can be challenging to follow when there are concurrent conversations occurring.

Participation is key for reaping the benefits of Twitter chats. Ask and answer questions, add insight, discuss. These are usually very open and friendly forums, so don’t be worried about posting a “stupid” comment or question.

Many times, there are pre-determined questions and the moderator will pose these in the form of this example: Q1 What is the best way to get value from a Twitter chat? Participants answer accordingly: A1 One idea is to participate actively and help newcomers.

Creating your own chat

Hosting your own chat can be a fun and rewarding way to create community around your ideas and subject matter. Let’s walk through the steps of creating a new Twitter Chat.

Set-up

First, I would want to secure a descriptive hashtag. At www.Twubs.com you can see if your hashtag has already been taken and secure one for your chat.

Once you have a unique name, it would be a good to reserve a Twitter handle for the chat.

To promote the chat, you may want to create a homebase on Facebook, LinkedIn group, or blog where you can make announcements and post completed conversations.

You’ll also need to pick a time and regular date for the chat. Every Monday? The second Tuesday of the month? Find a date that fits your schedule because as the moderator, you are creating a long-lasting commitment to your community. Some chat communities have co-moderators, or even shared responsibility among all the members.

Planning the content

In preparation for your first chat, you’ll want to personally invite a few friends to get the momentum going. Create enough topic questions ahead of time to propel at least 30 minutes of chat. Involve your community in choosing topics and questions. Other chats are just free-flowing with no assigned agenda. It’s just a place to meet and touch base.

Many chats feature special guests who help answer questions and engage with participants. So for example, I have been a guest “speaker” on book chats, marketing chats, and leadership chats to name a few. If you are asked to be a guest on a chat, be sure to have the prepared questions ahead of time so you can get ready with a at least a few tweetable responses. It can be quite challenging to keep up with the pace of conversation with coherent 140-character responses!

Post-chat and promotion

As the moderator, you are creating some very valuable, shareable content so be sure to capture this. There are several free platforms to do this including ChirpStory and Storify. You can post this content on your Facebook or blog and then promote this content to attract new members.

Promoting a link to your homebase in industry publications, social media outlets and related forums is another way to find people who might be interested in the topic.

Another best practice is to email a transcript to your community members after the chat. This will serve as a reminder of the next chat and also keep people in the loop even if they miss the event.

During the chat, everyone participating will be tweeting with the hashtag in the tweet. Just the act of having the chat is a great way to promote the event. I’ll often pop into a chat when I see an interesting hashtag pop up. As long as you stick to a consistent schedule and provide interesting content, your attendance will pick up over time.

Just like everything else, Twitter chats have limitations. The 140 character maximum can limit the depth of a commentary and even good ideas can get lost in a big chat. Still, the serendipitous connections you make in these forums are often more important than the content of the chat.

What have I missed? How do you get value from Twitter Chats? Positives and negatives? Tips you can share?

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-Mark Schaefer